House of Lords amendments to the Housing and Planning Bill, which would target small development sites for expensive affordable housing contributions and increase regulations and taxes on small builders, will stifle the supply of new homes at a time when they are needed most, warns Federation of Master Builders (FMB).

Brian Berry, chief executive of the FMB, said: “We understand the need for more affordable homes in rural areas and government policy must address this need but the intention to hit all small scale housing developments will be counterproductive. Up until relatively recently, including under a Labour government, we had a national threshold for affordable housing requirements set at 15 units. This was part of a longstanding recognition that it is not appropriate to place the same demands on the smallest sites and the smallest firms, as it is on major developments and multi-national companies.”

Mr Berry explains that the House of Lords is adapting legislation to mean that small sites should be treated the same as large sites, almost as if it were a matter of principle. There has been a long-term decline in the number and output of small and medium-sized housebuilders, a trend which has accelerated during the downturn and potentially reduced the overall capacity of the industry, in turn reducing our ability to build our way out of the housing crisis.

Mr Berry continued: “Unfortunately, this is only one of a series of amendments backed by the Lords which show a reckless lack of realism and concern for consequences of heavy-handed regulation. The disinterring of a zero carbon standard flies in the face of the fact that further carbon reduction on site will be difficult-to-impossible to achieve, so will likely amount to no more than a tax to enable off-site carbon mitigation. Heaping ever-more taxes and heavy-handed regulations on small local builders will worsen the housing crisis.”